Community,leadership,life-savingprojectscollectCAAAwards

Australian and New Zealand ambulance services celebrated their outstanding achievements at the Council of Ambulance Authorities (CAA) Awards for Excellence in Perth on Wednesday August 14.

Awards in five categories – patient care, technology, leadership, staff development and clinical performance – were presented at a gala dinner held inconjunction with the CAA19 CongressCAA Chief Executive David Waters congratulated the finalists and winners for their exemplary work and commitment to excellence.

“Each year at our Awards’ ceremony we see examples of the incredible, innovative initiatives undertaken by our ambulance services,” Mr Waters said.

“The Awards provide an important opportunity for services’ to showcase their projects and celebrate their success.”

ExcellenceinPatientCare WINNER:

Ambulance Victoria: GoodSAM & AED Registration ProgramsAmbulance Victoria partnered with UK Company GoodSAM to introduce its Smartphone app to alert community responders to suspected cardiac arrests as part of AV’s commitment to increase survival rates. Since the start of the program more than 4,000 people have registered and the evaluated survival rate, where GoodSAM responders attended, was more than four times higher than instances where no responder was present.

Finalists:

South Australian Ambulance Service: Client Support Unit (CSU)The South Australian Ambulance Service Client Support Unit was introduced in 2018 to identify and better assist frequent presenters to triple zero. In just three months of operation, presentations to emergency departments had reduced by 50 per cent; there were fewer calls to triple zero and transports to hospitals dropped from 115 to 58.

Ambulance Victoria: Pilot of the Pre-hospital Response Of Mental health and Paramedic Team (PROMPT): Providing Best CareAmbulance Victoria launched the Pre-hospital Response Of Mental Health and Paramedic Team, known as PROMPT, in Barwon district – an area where in 2018 ambulances responded to 5,360 mental health cases, which equates to 15 cases a day. The project involves two person teams responding to low acuity social or mental health issues to more effectively direct treatment and support. Early results from the pilot have been positive.

Excellence in Staff DevelopmentWINNER:

Queensland Ambulance Service: Critical Care Paramedic Leadership Development ProgramQAS implemented the Critical Care Paramedic Leadership Program for its team of 400 critical care paramedics. The program has worked to encourage CCPs to understand their roles as clinicians and leaders – influential positions involving mentoring and the capacity to drive positive cultural change. The learning process has been well received prompting one participant to describe the program as “by far the best professional development course I have been on.”

Finalists:

Ambulance Victoria: Peer Support DogAmbulance Victoria introduced a peer support dog trial as part of its staff wellbeing programs with a range of aims, including increasing the uptake of peer support and other programs and reducing stigma around help-seeking behaviour. An overwhelming positive response to the trial has resulted in an expansion of the program across the state with three dogs and handlers in active service and a capacity to increase to 12.

NSW Ambulance: Wellbeing WorkshopNSW Ambulance designed the Wellbeing Workshop specifically for paramedics, control centre staff and volunteers. Employees reflected a similar health status to other first responder groups with poor mental health, obesity issues and low physical activity. Since the introduction of the program, more staff have sought help and registered for fitness programs, with 82 per cent saying they feel confident or “much more confident” in their ability to be well, safe and protected at work.

Excellence in Leadership WINNER:South Australian Ambulance Service: SAAS Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP)SAAS introduced its Reconciliation Acton Plan as a means to engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, increase their rate of employment in its workforce and deliver equality of healthcare to make a positive contribution to Closing the Gap. The respect and trust developed through the program has been invaluable. It has enabled paramedics to provide early interventions in health care helping clients to avoid hospital treatments and empowering them to look after their own health care.

Finalists:

Ambulance Victoria: Growing Leaders ProgramTo foster the leadership capabilities of a large group of junior managers, Ambulance Victoria developed a unique program that was inexpensive, flexible and easily rolled across the state. It provided participants with the skills and tools to lead, and enable their teams to deliver excellent patient-centred care. It has transformed the way AV supports and develops front-line operational leaders.

NSW Ambulance: Protected at Work: Best Practice Occupational Violence Prevention program.NSW Ambulance developed a comprehensive program to help counter issues of occupational violence for paramedics. The program, from training to printed material and executive support, has helped build an environment of zero tolerance, replacing an acceptance of violence as being just part of the job. Some 74 percent of program participants believe they have better tools to combat violence.

Queensland Ambulance Service: Electronic Ambulance Report Form ProjectQAS established an Electronic Ambulance Report Form Project to develop an application to meet the needs of the QAS mobile workforce and replace an ageing, cumbersome and costly system. The ARF solution aimed to reduce the administrative downtime required to complete patient care records, allowing paramedics faster turnarounds in emergency response. The project was rolled out in 2017 to more than 3,500 users.

Ambulance Tasmania: ESCAD ProjectThe Tasmanian Emergency Services Computer Aided Dispatch Project is a multi-agency program designed to link all emergency services and improve the safety of the community and emergency service responders, using a contemporary integrated computer aided dispatch system. Senior staff from Ambulance Tasmania were involved the multi-agency development, which followed the 2013 catastrophic fires. A range of improvements have resulted including inter-agency coordination and communication.

Excellence in Clinical PerformanceWINNER:Ambulance Victoria: High-performance CPR: The development and implementation of a state-wide, multi-agency model in Victoria.As part of its commitment to adopting the GRA’s ten step program to improve out of hospital cardiac arrests, Ambulance Victoria identified two steps as most significant for patient survival in Victoria – High Performance CPR with ongoing training and quality improvement – and measuring professional resuscitation using defibrillators. The model included the appointment of a resuscitation officer, new cardiac arrest guidelines, a HP CPR education package, collaboration with state fire services and training for university students on clinical placement.

Finalists:

St John Western Australia: Revolutionising cardiac arrest outcomes in Western AustraliaSt John’s campaign to improve survival rates for out of hospital cardiac arrests began in late 2016 with the aim of achieving an additional five survivors a year, consistently, for the following five years. A state-wide high performance CPR model was introduced with the aim of improving recognition of OHCA and dispatch; increasing the numbers of AEDs in the community and introducing a community response app. In 2017, out of hospital survivors to hospital discharge increased from 113 compared with 173 in 2018.

Star Award:The Star Award, selected from the winners of each of the five categories, was presented to Ambulance Victoria for its Analytics Uplift Project.

Weareexcitedtowelcomeour2019judgestotheCAAAwardsforExcellenceAwards.

Professor Cameron is the Academic Director of The Alfred Emergency and Trauma Centre and Professor of Emergency and Divisional Head of Health Services Research at Monash University’s School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine. Professor Cameron is also the Chair of the Monash/Alfred Injury Network which brings together in excess of 100 researchers to form one of the most comprehensive academic groups in emergency and trauma globally. He is currently a Chief Investigator at the Centre for Research Excellence in Australian Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium, the Centre for Research Excellence in Pre- hospital, Emergency Care and a number of partnership and project grants involving injury and trauma research. He has been a principal investigator on a number of large NHMRC multi-centre trials, including The Australasian Resuscitation in Sepsis Evaluation – Randomised Controlled Trial and The RINSE Trial: The Rapid Infusion of Cold Normal SalinE by paramedics during CPR, and is currently a Chief Investigator on the POLAR study of hypothermia in head injury and Reduction of Oxygen After Cardiac Arrest. In the last five years he has published over 150 manuscripts in Medline indexed journals and has over 500 peer-reviewed career publications.

Professor Vivienne Tippett

Professor Tippett is the Director of Research for Queensland University of Technology’s School of Clinical Science. Professor Tippett has worked for nearly 20 years as a clinical researcher in emergency pre-hospital care, including seven years as Director of the Australian Centre for Pre-hospital Care Research at University of Queensland and Queensland Ambulance Service. In recognition of this work she was awarded the Distinguished Services Medal by the Queensland Ambulance Service in 2011. In 2014 she was acknowledged as one of 125 Women in Leadership awardees by the YWCA. Professor Tippett is currently leading a Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC consortium on emergency warnings and crisis communication. She was awarded the OAM for services to medical education in 2018.

Tony Blaber

Tony Blaber is a degree qualified Chartered Engineer with experience of industrial and health sector reforms in the United Kingdom and New Zealand. From 1994, he has worked in senior management roles providing ambulance services in the NHS UK and St John in NZ. As a St John Regional Chief Executive he also carried project responsibilities for consolidating the ambulance sector’s nine “111” call handling and dispatching centres into three with unified infrastructure, people, processes and systems. This fostered a closer collaboration with NZ Police and NZ Fire Service and led to the Project Team winning a Council of Ambulance Authorities Excellence in Technical Capability Award for “No wrong door for 111 calls”. Tony represented St John on the Council for a number of years and was appointed Operations Director for St John followed by a new start-up role as Transformation and Innovation Director piloting cross health sector, cross agency projects to transform the delivery of emergency and non-emergency ambulance services to add value to Crown contracts. Since retiring in 2011, and outside of some fundraising efforts for St John and family commitments, Tony’s main other work is as Trustee and Executive Officer of the non-aligned New Zealand Paramedic Education and Research Charitable Trust, formed in 2011, and as an Appointed Director on the Board of Probus South Pacific Limited.

Steve Irving

Steve Irving is an experienced paramedic with over 30 years service in the London Ambulance Service, latterly as Executive Officer to the Chief Executive. Steve has extensive experience of working on national strategic issues across ambulance services, government departments and alongside key stakeholders. Steve now works as Executive Officer at the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE) on a full time basis and works closely with the Managing Director across a broad range of AACE related issues. Steve is also the main organiser of the annual Ambulance Leadership Forum, which falls under the AACE remit.

The 2018 Awards for Excellence presented by the Council of Ambulance Authorities (CAA) highlight the breadth of the role ambulance services play in the community.

CAA Chief Executive David Waters said the 2018 Awards, announced in Auckland, New Zealand, highlighted the range and expertise involved in the work undertaken by ambulance services, and a standard of which all Australians can be proud.

“Some 38 outstanding nominations incorporated innovation in fields as diverse as technology, community support, training, medication and built environments,” he said.

“Our services are called on to perform roles as varied as assisting with the relocation of hospitals, helping children in isolated communities learn what to do in an emergency and of course life-saving interventions.”

Mr Waters congratulated each of the finalists and winners who were presented with trophies at the Gala Awards Dinner in Auckland sponsored by SDSI.

The 2018 winners and finalists:

TechnicalAward

IntegratedClinicalAnalyticsSystem,StJohnNewZealand

Integrated clinical analytics aim to support safe and patient-centric health care. This project was linked to the introduction of electronic patient report forms which enabled the service to capture, measure and code patient information for more than 500,000 incidents a year.

Finalist: Hub and Spoke Modelling, St John New ZealandThe hub and spoke model allows for more efficient and cost effective delivery of services using low cost “spokes”, moveable response locations rather than traditional fixed stations. The model ensures ambulances can be in the right place at the right time.

ManagementAward:Jointwinners

FatigueRiskManagementSystem,SAAmbulanceService

SA Ambulance Service resolved to align fatigue management with contemporary research and best practice which lead to the introduction of a new 24/7 rosters allowing staff to monitor their own fatigue levels. The new system has resulted in a significant reduction in fatigue-related reports.

MadeReadyModel,NSWAmbulanceService

The two main components of the model – environmental cleaning of ambulances and a new methodology for supply chain management of consumable items – is a first for any Australian ambulance service and has helped achieve the same efficiencies realised in hospitals – and quality assurance comparable to the airline industry.

Finalist: The Royal Adelaide Hospital Clinical Move, SA Ambulance ServiceSAAS led one of Australia’s largest and most complex hospital moves with the opening of the new Royal Adelaide Hospital in 2017. The service delivered the safe and efficient relocation of 297 patients to the new hospital with no impacts on normal activity during a period of unprecedented demand.

EducationAward

ElectronicPortfolioofEvidence,StJohnNewZealand

St John New Zealand created an electronic portfolio of evidence - ePOE - to put paramedics in the driving seat of their own clinical maintenance and education. It is an opportunity to ensure paramedics are both responsible for their own CPD and engaged in reflective practice.

Finalist: Establishment of an Aboriginal First Responder Team, Ambulance VictoriaMembers for the First Response Team at Lake Tyers (Bung Yarnda) Aboriginal Trust in Gippsland, Victoria, were recruited from the community to “bridge the gap” and pilot culturally sensitive primary emergency response, reduce barriers to care and improve employment opportunities.

ClinicalAward

ACT-FAST is a unique tool to detect patients with the most severe form of stroke and triage them to appropriate treatment more easily and quickly. The project aimed to create a simple and easily deployable paramedic procedure for identification of stroke patients requiring clot retrieval surgery.

Finalist: Sublingual Ketamine analgesia use by volunteer ambulance officers, St John Ambulance Western AustraliaThe trial of “Wafermine” by volunteer ambulance officers, aims to establish the training requirements, logistics, safety and clinical effectiveness of a novel analgesic agent for use in rural and regional areas. It is believed to be the first use of this type of medication in the pre-hospital sector.

StarAward

The Star Award, the overall winner from each of the four categories, was presented to Dr Henry Zhao (Principal Investigator, Royal Melbourne Hospital & Ambulance Victoria) and Professor Karen Smith (Ambulance Victoria) for their ACT-FAST: a clinical triage algorithm for stroke clot retrieval.